Conventionally, management has been carried out by indicating management information including quality data of parts or materials used for the production of a product, production conditions, the maintenance period, inspection data obtained by inspecting the product, the date of manufacture, or the manufacturer in order to perform quality management of the product or member. The management information is indicated as text information as it is, or coded to indicate on the product or member. Therefore, it has been required to provide management information such as text or code of the date of manufacture or the manufacturer in order to perform quality management of the product or member.
Furthermore, when providing the management information to the product, in general, the management information is stamped, or printed, or a sheet indicating the management information is adhered on the surface of the product. Various processing methods have been used to indicate the management information by subjecting the product to a surface processing. For example, various processing methods, such as laser processing, sandblast processing, chemical etching process, as well as, hand-carving process using cutting tools, etc., have been used.
The traceability of the produced product has been managed by manually or mechanically reading out the management information indicated on the surface of the product.
In the prior art, various techniques for the management of production history information of the product or member by reading out management information provided to the product or member have been proposed.